RE: Top 12 Things I Didn't Know I Would Be Doing On Steemit
It is a weird mix, but there's a distorted concentration of some bits and not enough of others.
Right now, it feels like it's predominated by 20-30 something males, mostly single, mostly middle class to crypto affluent, who haven't really had much in the way of major life responsibilities or experiences, who are geeks of some kind, be it dev work or game theory or the crypto investor, who brings the same kind of attitude as the Wolf of Wall Street, except in a technobabble kind of way. They will fight over Star Wars, Marvel movies and Steem Monsters before they'll have a serious conversation of where they're going to be in 10 years.
They're largely out of touch, either don't know it, can't see it , or don't care. It's mostly about them.
On the other end of it, you have the folks from Venezuela and Nigeria and the Philippines and other areas that are turning to this platform as a means of day to day support. They have access, some of them are educated beyond some grade school or high school, but most are just hoping to find a way to make ends meet. They have families and extended families to support and some of them have already lived a lifetime of hard knocks before they're 30.
In the middle of that comes the rest of us. A little older, a little wiser, a little more seasoned, a little more patient, a little less irritable, a little more willing to help if we can, a little more thoughtful, and some of us are actually smarter than our younger geekier male crypto-investor/reddit minded counterparts, while being financially in better shape, with less on the line than our Venezuelan and Nigerian friends.
So, here we are, in a tug of war between realities, saying it's going to be okay in one direction while we're railing in the other for them to get a clue and start acting like it matters.
Where I generalize, you hit on specifics. Beautifully, I might add.
I've been semi-following the steemmonsters thing, and I see others gaming hard, yet today, I had a "friend" here from Uganda in desperate need of money because they must pay 3-5 months' rent at one time. She's just finished university, can't find a job in the capital city, doing research for lazy wealthier students to survive, and doesn't want to go back to her village because there is a future of an arranged marriage, children and hard work to make ends meet day to day. An intelligent woman, and this is her future.
And there's steemmonsters.
I hear you loud and clear Glen. Am I "dissing" steemmonsters? Not really. Just because half the planet suffers, should our young, fortunate to have been born in a wealthier part of the world, have to suffer as well. No. But yes. How about just be aware, and if we are actually on a platform that can make a difference, why isn't everyone doing just that?
Has it always been as such, and now we are literally having conversations with people around the world, so it's much harder to ignore the hardships that others face? Although, according to your summation, there are plenty of 30 something year olds who are doing just that.
It's a sad state of affairs. I wonder if a few of us see it as a tug of war, but really, there's no tug and no war, because there's too many without a clue, or with a clue and just don't care.
sigh
The thing about Steem Monsters is, it's a pretty good idea. They've got some smart looking cards (although, a bit generic and well worn—they could have come up with something a little more STEEM specific), and now they're farming out some major work for backstories on the characters to Steemians and paying what will end up being pennies on the dollar for it, and people are happily doing it because there's enough contest money available for it and because they want to show their creativity. It's being a part of a project that's greater than self.
According to the makers, they're hoping this will bring more people to the platform. Okay. I'd like to know who these people are? The 30-something year old people I see playing Magic, The Gathering during the middle of the day when others would be working to support a family? I don't know. Sometimes I feel I've already gone insane.
I don't know if it's possible to help everyone. I don't know how possible it is to prove who people are so we can have some self-assurance that the aid being sent is actually getting to a person in actual need. But I wouldn't mind seeing more of that and less of some of this other.